


As Sharp as a Broken Cup

by LollingCat



Series: Inky Mystery Fics [9]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine, Cuphead (Video Game), bendy and boris in the inky mystery - Fandom, the inky mytery
Genre: Evil Cuphead AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23152558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LollingCat/pseuds/LollingCat
Summary: An Evil Cuphead AU of the Inky Mystery. Self-explanatory.Mugman meets his brother at the peers and endures more trauma he didn't need.
Series: Inky Mystery Fics [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1850077
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	As Sharp as a Broken Cup

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Bendy and Boris in The Inky Mystery](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10726146) by [Mercowe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercowe/pseuds/Mercowe), [ThisAnimatedPhantom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisAnimatedPhantom/pseuds/ThisAnimatedPhantom). 



Mugman fiddled with his scarf, pushing it up against his chin and mouth as he breathed out into the cold air. A chill ran up his spine, from the cold, but soon it wouldn’t be simply because of the frosty temperature.

Cuphead had asked him to meet him at the peers in the Sykes brothers’ warehouse.

Mugs had seen the gleam in his brother’s eyes grow each and every day they spent with the Bbros and their ‘family’. The same gleam that grew brighter and stronger under Black Hat’s training, under the Devil’s contract. The one that had gone from defiance to curiosity to ambition. The dangerous gleam that Mugs lost more and more control over.

There was no use putting off the inevitable. He had to enter the warehouse and confront his brother. Perhaps it wouldn’t be that bad. A simple scheme to knock the Questers off their quest and make the Devil happier.

By now Mugs should have learned not to expect the minimum with his brother. When his brother did something, he did it at the maximum. Go big or go to Hell.

“Mugsy!” His brother immediately called out chirpily to him. It was odd to hear in his rough, smoke-coated voice. But not uncommon. Mugs supposed it was his way of trying to show he was eager to meet his beloved younger brother. The cupman blocked his view as Mugs entered the warehouse, his eyes- one normal, the other cracked over- wide, bright, and  _ gleaming.  _ “I have a proposition for you.”

Mugs swallowed slowly. When Cuphead started out with a ‘deal’, it was never good. “Oh yeah?”

“Both Bendy and Boris can see the map, right?”

“...Yes,” Mugs hesitantly answered. That was why they hadn’t just killed them. They were using them to find the parts so they could give them to the boss (or keep the parts to themselves, if Cup’s ambition got ahead of him).

“And if something happened to one or the other, we’d still have one left, yes?” A self-satisfied smirk had placed itself firmly on Cup’s face.

Mugs, even if he wasn’t the brightest, immediately knew where this was heading. “No. We aren’t killing either of them. If we do, the other would be too distraught to continue the quest, and it’d be useless then.” Mugs had learned to use logic to stop Cup, not feelings. Feelings only worked when Mugs completely broke down crying, and unfortunately, living with a demon as a parental figure and mentor for a majority of his childhood made it quite hard to properly express emotions.

Cup rolled his eyes, smirk never leaving his face. “Oh, of course I’ve thought of that all before, Mugsy.”  _ Mugsy.  _ Mugs had grown to hate the nickname. Cup always called him that, like he would always be a tiny, gullible, stupid child who needed to be calmly walked through the steps of everything. “It would be  _ very, very  _ traumatic for them, I’m sure. Bendy would go into a rage or something and be killed for going beastly on the Surface. Boris would cry a lot and starve himself to death. But what if they never knew the other died?”

Mugman paused. “What?”

“What if the other never even realized the other was dead?”

“That doesn’t- that’s not… how it works. They’d notice a dead body- or they’d notice a lack of the other there. Even with the Devil’s weird forget-y magic, they’d  _ notice,  _ Cup.” Had his brother finally gone insane? Lost his final marble? Cracked too far? The crack on his eye had gotten bigger after the events of Nightmare Night…

“Not if the other kept walking around like a  _ living, breathing  _ person.” Cuphead’s smile grew at Mugs’ rising confusion. “Imagine this, Mugsy.” Cup waved his hand out in front of him. “I kill Bendy. I have my little runist put some spells on his dead body to slow down how fast it rots and all that stardust. I use the  _ doll-''  _ like a magic trick, Cup reached into his sleeve and pulled out the doll, in the shape of Bendy, to Mugs’s growing horror. “-to puppeteer his body. No strings attached!” Cup cackled a bit at his own  _ mortifying  _ joke.

“Cup that’s-” Mugs sucked in a sharp breath.  _ “That’s insane!”  _ His brother finally had lost it! And here he thought he was more a clever, cunning antagonist, not a  _ CRAZY CRACK-HEAD (LITERALLY!).  _ “You can’t-” Logic.  _ Logic.  _ “You can’t make it talk like Bendy! You can’t make it walk! You can’t make it eat! All the doll does is inflict pain and heal wounds! That would never work!  _ DID YOU KILL BENDY?!”  _ He wouldn’t! Not without Mugman knowing! He would have told him- tried to get him in on the plan, and it would have ended with Mugs finding some reason not to do it.

Cup laughed huskily, rolling his eyes. “No, no, don’t worry little Mugsy. The demon is still alive and well… enough.” He smiled as he gently squeezed the doll, a dark gleam in his eye. Although Mugs wasn’t sure how gentle  _ gently  _ was. “And I’ve already thought about all that. Did you think this doll couldn’t do  _ so so  _ much more? The right runes and magic here and there, and we can get this thing to tap dance.”

“Cup, that thing is dangerous! Don’t mess with it! One of those runes could backfire and- and  _ kill you!  _ Or distort reality like the cog, or something terrible! It’s uncontrollable!” Mugs’s eyes were wider than they ever been. Oh stars, his brother had laid himself down a path Mugs didn’t think he could get him back from. What if the doll held the same mind warping and ability enhancing as the cog?! What if he was going to be like Holly on Nightmare Night, but ten-times worse?  _ He was already half-way there on a good day!  _ “You saw what the cog did to Holly!”

“And I quite like what I saw.” His smirk grew dangerous, his eyes narrowing. “And this doll is only half as powerful as the cog. But even I’m not stupid enough to mess with the cog. The doll is enough for me... “ The unspoken “ _ for now” _ hung in the air like a skinned pig in a butcher’s shop.

Mugs bit his lip, clenching his fists as his arms shook. “Cuphead. This isn’t safe. The boss will get mad with you.”

“Will he?” Cup raised his head challengingly. “He just promoted me to  _ demon lord.” _

“Wh-Wh-What?” Mugs felt the world sink and turn around him. Cuphead had become  _ a demon lord.  _ When all he had was demon blood injected into him from Black Hat’s experiments, and all he was was the Devil’s top debtor.  _ And Mugs never even knew.  _ When had this happened? Last night? Or a week ago? A month?  _ Why hadn’t he told Mugs?  _ What else had Cup been keeping from him?

A pit opened in Mugs’s stomach, deeper than the pits of Hell.

What else had Cup been able to do, and Mugs was  _ never even aware? What had he done? What had he done?! _

“But that’s not important right now.” He waved dismissively.  _ Wasn’t important! The cuss-!  _ “Back to puppeteering Bendy’s dead body…”

Mugs snapped out, “What more could you possibly say about puppeteering  _ a dead body?!” _

Cup, of course, just smirked. “Patience, Mugs.” He rubbed a finger on the goggles of the doll. “There are some things we can’t replicate with Bendy… His control over shadows… Him going beastly or changing shape… His ink attacks.”

Mugs let out a breath to control himself. “So basically you’re telling me you brought me out here to tell me you had the idea of controlling a zombie Bendy, but can’t do it anyway?!”

“No, Mugsy.” That same irritating tone of voice. Like he was talking to a small child.  _ Mugsy.  _ Why did Mugman put up with his brother again? “It means we can’t control Bendy… but we can control Boris.”

A thousand more pits placed themselves at the bottom of Mugs’s stomach.

“No ink attacks. No shadows. No demon powers. Just a simple toon, with a simple body, who goes unnoticed by his family. All he has to do is wag his tail and smile, and everyone pats him on the head and walks by.”

“Boris isn’t that simple!” Mugman snapped, practically growling. Heat grew at the tips of his fingers, but he forced them not to glow. “Everyone loves him! Everyone notices him! He keeps the house bright! He cares for everyone, and everyone cares for him! Especially Bendy! You could never replicate his emotions, and his actions and his history and his love! You don’t know him!”

“But you do, Mugman,” Cup said.

Mugs’s head whipped back in shock, his mouth going slack. No-

That was-

That was  _ twisted. _

Cup stepped towards him. “You could control Boris. You could puppeteer him. You know him very well, Mugs.”

“No!” Mugman shrieked. “Are you cussing  _ crazy?! Do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth?!” _

“I hear them very well, Mugsy.” That damned smirk. “And you know what else I need you to do?”

_ “What?!” _

“Kill him.”

Cup moved out of the way, letting Mugman’s eyes adjust to the darkness and see the rest of the warehouse. Boxes were pushed to the side, letting a pile of dark fur and clothes lay in the center of a ring of runes carved with white into the floor.

_ Boris. _

“No,” Mugs whispered.

“Yes,” the demon beside him whispered back.

“No,” Mugs growled. His fist clenched, wanting desperately to punch  _ Cuppy. _ “What made you think I would ever  _ kill  _ him?”

Cup walked around him-  _ circled  _ him, like the blood-thirsty shark he was. “Because I told you not to get attached. I told you we would have to kill them eventually. One way or another. The boss would never let them go alive. It would have been less painful for us and for them to kill them right at the start. But you were always soft, Mugsy. So I hardened myself for you.” He paused on Mugs’s left, whispering the last bit softly into Mugs’s ear, or lack thereof.

“I could get us to the top. I want you as my right-hand-man, Mugsy. Like King Dice is to the Devil. Demons work best in pairs, they just don’t want to admit it. But I will. Mugs, I want us to be at the top so nothing can ever hurt you again.” That gleam in his eye. That dangerous, ambitious,  _ lying  _ gleam.

Cuphead didn’t care. He just wanted the power, the fame, the glory, the money, the attention.

Cuphead  _ did  _ care- he protected him from the boss and King Dice and everyone else, always taking the hit, the blame for him.

But the question was, did Cup care for his  _ feelings?  _ His opinions, his emotions, his wants?

Mugs’s eyes flickered from his brother to the wolf pup on the cold floor. He- He- He-...

Blue glowed at his fingertips.

The decision came immediately.

“I can’t!”

Cuphead tsked. “Of course.”

Blue glowed at his fingertips.

A bullet launched.

“Cuphead no!”

Mugman lurched forward pitifully, tears in his eyes.

Boris disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Mugs stopped, choking on tears as he looked for a scorched dead body… and found none. The runes were gone.

“I-... You- YOU-” Mugman whipped around angrily towards his brother, teeth clenched painfully. “THAT WAS AN ILLUSION! YOU SUNBLAZING CRACKED SCHMUCK!”

Cuphead smiled proudly. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t cast the spells.” He gestured beside him.

It was like Holly materialized beside him, a small, hunched over, meak girl with dark eye bags under her eyes and unkempt hair. Bracelets and bands with various runes written on them covered her arms, and a bag around her shoulder full of more- and her journal, probably. It took Mugman a startled moment to realize why he hadn’t noticed her.  _ Fade. Blank. _

There was an obvious apology in her eyes.

Mugman didn’t blame her.

She didn’t have a choice, unless she wanted to give up her soul to Cuphead.

She was his debtor.

“I-” Mugman took a calming breath. “You- You-  _ why?” _

“So you can grow as hardened as me, Mugsy. I want you to realize why what I’m doing is right.”

“This isn’t right, Cuphead. You know that. You’ve known that since we first became debtors.”

“It isn’t  _ good.  _ It isn’t the good guy, the hero’s way. But it’s the right thing for me- for  _ us  _ to do. We can rule the top, Mugman. We can be Lords together,” Cup pleaded with him.

Mugman grit his teeth. “No. What’s right is staying and helping with the quest.”

“Who cares about them?”

“ _ I do! _ ” All patience flew out of Mugs as he launched himself at Cuphead, fist ready to connect with his porcelain face.

The only warning he had were red eyes, a growl and Snowball squeaking and rubbing her eyes on Holly’s shoulder.

Next thing he knew, a stray mutt was standing over him, fangs at his throat, while rats scuttled around him and a bat screeched in the raptures. A cat was hissing somewhere. Tiny little puffballs- black and gray and white  _ dandehogs _ \- bigger than they should be, with little spikes growing from the tops of their heads, stared at him from atop some boxes, posed to attack but unmoving.

Red eyes. So many red eyes.

Mugman sucked in a deep breath.

What had he done while Mugman wasn’t looking indeed.

“Why don’t you head  _ home _ , Mugsy, and get some rest?” Cuphead suggested, gesturing to the mutt. The dog growled and let off of Mugman, prowling around him with glowing crimson eyes. A rat nipped at his ankle.

He jumped to his feet, kicking away a few rats as they glared angrily up at him. “I’ll tell everyone the truth about you.”

“And then what? The boss takes you and your soul away, takes  _ Cala  _ away? Kills Bendy and Boris himself, maybe? Puts everyone in the house on a demon hit list? What good will it do you?” Cup stood with an immovable smirk on his face. Stars, what Mugs wouldn’t give to wipe it off his face.

Instead, he shook, with tears streaming down his face, and like a young child whose older brother had just taken away his favorite toy, he said, “I hate you.”

And left with a  _ poof. _

Perhaps if he stayed, he would have seen the smirk disappear from the cupman’s face, replaced by a startled frown. Just as quickly as it vanished, the smirk was back again as he turned to his debtor. His runist. His pet.

“My poor little brother. So naive.” Cuphead lifted the doll up, rubbing its chest. Taking the cue, Holly fiddled with a bracelet on her forearm, and then the doll shifted forms, taking on its real appearance of Boris B-Brother Wolf. “We could have ruled Hell together, couldn’t we have, little tree?”

Holly, to her credit, at least managed to glare at him.

“I suppose you’ll have to do instead,” Cup chuckled dryly. “C’mon lil’ sis, we have a kingdom of fire and death to visit.”

Holly shivered. Snowball whimpered.

Cuphead smirked.

**Author's Note:**

> Its kind of lacking at the end but its nearly 1am here okay. Hope you liked it! If i write any sequeals or prequels they'll be titled, like "As Dull as a Dead Dog", or "As Faded as a Withered Holly".
> 
> Thanks for reading! Good luck and good writing! ^^


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